Recording a new song - how the sausage is made!

So this morning I set out to record a song. I tuned my guitar, and checked it by playing some lines. I played a slow, bluesy riff and was hooked. This riff was smokin'! I forgot all about the song I was going to record - I was all set up in my DAW for that song, this one was slower and the beat I had for the other song was all wrong for this riff = and set it up clean. I was going to make it an ostinato - a 'stubborn' riff that repeated throughout the new song. I recorded the riff through many times to a click track - this is a metronomic 'tic' that keeps you on the beat when recording. The sound I wanted was reminiscent of the main riff in Spirit in the Sky - a crackling, heavily distorted guitar riff played on the low strings. messing around with amp and fuzz tones, I got what I wanted!

Then I put together a drum loop. I played around with different rhythms and kits, none of which worked, then laid one down that seemed ok. It was a bit... plain. Then I remember Adam Ant's version of the Burundi Beat, a complex polyrhythmic beat from the African nation of Burundi. Adam's band The Ants performed the Burundi Beat with two drummers in full kit, with lots of rolling toms, and was behind some wicked songs like Goody Two Shoes and Antmusic. So I superimposed a second loop over the first, this one with lots of tom tom action. The interaction between the two was what I was looking for!

Now I had to sing it! I played back the riff with the new beat in a loop itself and improvised sounds to it, which gradually began to morph into coherent phrases, so I used these phrases as key phrases and wrote the rest of the lyrics around them - this is a method I have used many many times, and always seems to work well! The song turned out to be a song about a space ship leaving one star system and jumping to another, eventually to a cloud city on a gas giant. Cool! I love surprises!

I recorded the new lyrics, but they were meh... I tried different amounts of roughness and smoothness, different tonalities, and different phrasing. What finally clicked was a full on Sinatra phrasing with a smooth, deeper voice, though the song was in moderately high in my range - when I was 20 I could easily pack two octaves on top of my current range if I needed to, but that was long gone. It was exactly right!

Now for the final guitar overdubs. So far this was a lotta drums, that Spirit In The Sky-ish riff, and the single Sinatra vocals over all. I had some nice ideas, but I was curiously reluctant to add anything more. I sent the song as it was to my son Klaxon - who is always my first bounce listener - and he agreed. Add nothing. It was fine as it was. He recommended a few small changes, which I incorporated, but nothing was added. And I was happy! This almost never happens the first day! Everything worked and sounded RIGHT!

Rockets and Dreams

I am now eight songs deep into a second album called Rockets And Dreams. I should be finished before the month is done. This album is more consistent in sound than the first - which was supposed to emulate a compilation album, and the style varied a lot.

I was just about to call you a liar
When outta the dark come that laser fire
I couldn't help but think it's more than it seems
Not just your ordinary red light beams
Like rockets and dreams
Just like rockets and dreams

Here's the cover - the same as my StarCluster 4 - FTL Now game.

More Post-Apoc Wavefront Empire

In my Saturday game of post-apocaliptic Wavefront Empire we hacked into the old computers - people! if you want people to work on resurrecting the world 200 years in the future, you need to remember to place your workstation login and password where they can be easily FOUND! Thank you, anonymous person in HR for doing your duty! The group repaired the high tension wiring outside the fusion power plant all the way to a city sector transformer, where it went underground. They can now direct power to any specific location in that sector and in the central sector directly fed by the plant.

Had an encounter with a giant raptor bird with a 14 foot wingspan while repairing the high tension wires - nest was built in the tower, and Roxuty took the three giant chicks to raise as hunting 'falcons'. Roxuty is an animal warden, and downed the mama with a drug gun, without killing it. We also almost got caught in a stampede of feathered dinos being chased by a huge bird dino down the street, but most everyone was able to climb trees out of the way, except teeny three foot tall Torrey the Norn, who was too small to reach any branches. Roxuty pointed her to a storm drain, which she was able to jump into seconds ahead of the stampede. The dino bird tried to fish her out, giving up on the fleet herd, but Roxuty shot it with a drug gun twice while Joelyn distracted it by throwing pine cones. Good times were had by all! Next up, they plan on sending power to the Commercial Espionage treehouse and seeing what information they can find there.

Post-apoc Wavefront Empire

So the player characters in my deviant Wavefront Empire game are exploring Chaliceport, and broke into the mothballed-for-200-years civic fusion power plant. They examined the turbines (good condition), power lines (down), transformers (intact), and reactor (not so good). They had a battle with a hungry pterandon on the office roof (bloody, but survived), and finally started up the diesel startup/backup generators and got power within the plant - this was far more within their wheelhouse than the reactor! They made 'camp' and slept in the employee break room in the control center. Having a psionic lockpicker is handy!

This

Tonight, my Wednesday group has this waiting for them:

No, not a dungeon! Not that kind of game! :D

All the OTHER Stuff!

So becoming a Rock God is a whole lot more tedious than I thought... I have been joining various artists rights organizations (BMI, Sound Exchange) and pushing the album as much as I dare and can stand, but mostly filling out innumerable and complex forms of various sorts dealing with distribution. Now you can use my songs/recordings in a commercial, or a YouTube video, or sample the music, or perform my songs yourself, and it is all covered. I should probably write a sequel to High Strung set in the current day. Nothing is the same! Used to be bands toured to publicize their albums. Now people release albums to publicize their touring. And bureaucratic form filling is a required skill! :D

Greatest Hits 2018-2018 Now Streaming!

My first album, Greatest Hits 2018-2018, is now streaming on Spotify, Amazon Music, and a bunch of other services. including some I have never heard of! It's also available on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lsgpZSWHraMGIko6yElW1XSDhgmJxNKmA so enjoy!